As more and more people are now acknowledging -- and I think they are entirely correct and, if anything, still underestimating what will be the ultimate costs of this calamity -- the damage caused by the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico will most likely be felt for several decades at least. The economic costs forbid accurate projection at this point; that might not be an altogether regrettable result, for a fuller version of the truth might well be so horrifying that it would induce paralysis of both thought and action. The human costs -- the livelihoods destroyed, the families subjected to unendurable stress and most probably similarly destroyed in very large numbers, the hopes and dreams put on indefinite hold, only to be surrendered in their totality in time -- prohibit contemplation.One aspect of the profoundly evil system that has been destroying us for over a hundred years -- and make no mistake, it is deeply evil in design, intent and effect, if by evil we designate those actions which destroy the very possibility of thriving life -- is especially awful. The authoritarian-corporatist-militarist system victimizes untold millions of individual human beings, as well as many other forms of life as we see again today, both here and abroad. That would be a momentous evil in itself, but this particular evil is unsatisfied with only this first form of destruction.Thus, the victims are targeted a second time, and they are forced to become collaborators in their own destruction. It is crucial to understand that these two forms of destruction are not separate manifestations of separate evils. They are the consequences of the same evil, and the two forms of lingering torture and death (psychologically at a minimum, and frequently existentially as well) are part of one overall design. I've discussed certain cultural-psychological manifestations of this dynamic in a number of essays. For an introduction to this analytic approach, I would recommend one article in particular: "Let the Victims Speak." As I stated at the outset of that essay, the nature and operation of this dynamic are very complex; it took me a few decades to appreciate its character. If the subject interests you, I therefore suggest a reading of the earlier article in its entirety.These passages will provide a sense of the dynamic that concerns me, one that is so commonplace that most people don't even notice it:
Focus on the critical sentence: "Yet, when a victim explodes or acts out in unacceptable ways, these same officials are shocked and indignant."What exactly are these "unacceptable ways" of exploding or acting out? Who decided they were "unacceptable"? Why is it that "reluctant school officials" will not "take definitive action" against the bullies -- thus tacitly conceding that the bullying itself is not all that "unacceptable" -- while the same officials are "shocked and indignant" when the victim protests too strongly?This pattern, and certain of its origins, will be found throughout history, in every culture around the world. The pattern is a simple and deadly one: the oppressor -- that is, those who are in the superior position, whether they are parents, school officials, or the government, or in a superior position merely by virtue of physical strength -- may inflict bodily harm and/or grievous, lifelong emotional and psychological injury, but the victim may only protest within the limits set by the oppressor himself. The oppressor will determine those forms of protest by the victim that are "acceptable."You see this pattern with regard to many helpless, lonely children in addition to Billy Wolfe......Think about this very carefully for a moment. The oppressor may inflict unimaginable cruelties on innocent victims -- but the victims may only protest in ways which the oppressor deems "acceptable." The profound injustice is obvious, but not in itself remarkable or unexpected: this is how oppression operates. But ask yourself about the deeper reason for the prohibition. This is of the greatest importance: the victims may only protest within a constricted range of "permissible" behavior because, when they exceed the prescribed limits, they make the oppressors too uncomfortable. They force the oppressors to confront the nature of what they, the oppressors, have done in ways that the oppressors do not choose to face.The fifth grader in the story would have been fully justified in screaming at his teachers for minutes, even hours. He would have been fully justified in demanding to know why his teachers humiliated him so mercilessly in front of his classmates, and why they exposed him to cruel scrutiny and mockery in this way. He had every right to ask why his teachers -- his teachers, who are supposed to protect him from gratuitous cruelty and who are supposed to be devoted to his well-being -- would so deeply betray their role. But what do you suppose would have happened to him if he had reacted in this way? As in the case of Billy Wolfe, his teachers would have been "shocked and indignant." The boy with Stahl's ear would almost certainly have been punished again -- for identifying the nature of the cruelty perpetrated against him and protesting against it.Take some time to appreciate the unfathomable cruelty of this pattern. You may be grievously harmed and even permanently damaged by the actions of those who hold unanswerable power -- but you may only speak about this evil and its effects within the very narrow limits set by those who would destroy you. If you are killed, the identical prohibitions apply to those who still manage to survive and who would protest the unforgivable crime committed against you. In this manner, the complacency and comfort of those who possess immense power and wealth are underwritten by the silence forced upon their victims. The victims may speak and even protest, but only within severely circumscribed limits, and only so long as their rulers are not made to feel too uncomfortable, or too guilty. Anything which approaches too close to the truth is strictly forbidden.This is the system of government carefully erected and fortified in the United States over the last century. In the last several decades, it has been made impregnable and unassailable. If you tell the full truth or even approach it, you are consigned to the void beyond the most distant borders of permissible debate.I consider this only a start at the task of understanding this pattern and its operations; time and health permitting, I will address these complicated matters in more detail in the future. But I now want you to consider another aspect of this collaboration in their own destruction forced upon the victims.The pattern is the same: the victims are forced to participate in their own destruction. If you participate in our authoritarian-corporatist-militarist system in any significant way, there is no way of escaping this dilemma. I repeat the point for emphasis: this is the way the system was designed. The events of the last decade in particular and the events of today -- the acceptance of torture as a "normal" method of state- and warcraft, endless criminal wars of aggression, genocide, the funneling of vast amounts of wealth from defenseless "ordinary" citizens to the already engorged ruling class, the destruction of the Gulf and a huge additional number of lives -- are not aberrations, the result of the system having gone awry. This is what the system is designed to do. Most people recoil from evil of this magnitude; they refuse to identify and accept the system for what it is. They still seek to "reform" or "save" it. In other words: they themselves seek rationalizations and justification for their continuing collaboration. The ruling class is many things: avaricious, consumed by lust for power and control, heedless and uncaring of the immense destruction they cause, provided the destruction never touches their lives. But the ruling class is emphatically not stupid. To state what would be painfully obvious, if only so many people were not so wedded to denial: they constitute the ruling class, and you do not. And they counted on your reluctance or outright refusal to identify their evil. They knew they could depend on your continued collaboration in your own drawn-out torture and death.And they were entirely, completely right. This is hardly the first time history has proven this particular truth.You can avoid the demand that you support your own destruction, but it is not an approach many people will choose: you can withdraw your support, in every way possible to you. Neither I nor anyone else can tell you how to effect that choice, should you wish to do so. The particulars of each person's life are unique, and the choice of non-cooperation presents itself in many forms. If you view the system as profoundly, irrevocably evil, and if you do not choose to support it any longer, only your own conscience can provide the necessary guidance. Only you can decide how much of your soul you are willing to surrender.It may be somewhat easier to grasp and understand the nature of the further aspect of the enforced collaboration to which I refer. You will find the example set forth in appalling detail by Nick Turse: "Kick Ass or Buy Gas?" The relevance of the discussion above is made clear by the article's subtitle: "How Taxpayers Are Subsidizing BP's Disaster Through the Pentagon."Here are several key passages:
Residents of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida are livid with BP in the wake of the massive, never-ending oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico -- and Barack Obama says they ought to be. But there’s one aspect of the BP story that most of those angry residents of the Gulf states aren’t aware of. And the president hasn’t had a thing to say about it.Even as the tar balls hit Gulf beaches, their tax dollars are subsidizing BP and so far, President Obama has not shown the slightest indication that he plans to stop their flow into BP coffers, despite the recent call of Public Citizen, a watchdog group, to end the nation’s business dealings with company. In fact, the Department of Defense, which has a longstanding, multi-billion dollar business relationship with BP, tells TomDispatch that it has no plans to sever current business ties or curtail future contracts with the oil giant....The Pentagon’s foreign wars have left it particularly heavily dependent on oil services, energy, and petroleum companies. An analysis published at Foreign Policy in Focus found that, in 2005, 145 such companies had contracts with the Pentagon. That year, the Department of Defense paid out more than $1.5 billion to BP alone and a total of $8 billion taxpayer dollars, in total, to energy-related firms on what is a far-from-complete list of companies.In 2009, according to the Defense Energy Support Center, the military awarded $22.5 billion in energy contracts. More than $16 billion of that went to purchasing bulk fuel. Some 10 top petroleum suppliers got the lion’s share, more than $11.5 billion, among them big names like Shell, Exxon Mobil and Valero. The largest contractor, however, was BP, which received more than $2.2 billion -- almost 12% of all petroleum-contract dollars awarded by the Pentagon for the year.While one exceptionally powerful department of the federal government has been feeding money into BP (and other oil giants) with abandon, BP has consistently run afoul of U.S. government regulators from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). According to the Center for Public Integrity, “BP account[ed] for 97 percent of all flagrant violations found in the [oil] refining industry by government safety inspectors over the past three years.” Records obtained by the Center demonstrate that between June 2007 and February 2010, BP received a total of 862 citations......Over those same years, BP received around $5.7 billion in federal contracts, according to official government data. In fact, the $2.2 billion the Pentagon paid to the oil giant in 2009 accounted for almost 16% of the company’s nearly $14 billion in annual profits.This fiscal year, the U.S. military has already awarded the company more than $837 million, inking its latest deal with BP in March.Turse later notes that, "[i]n a June 5th email message to supporters, paid for by Organizing for America, a project of the Democratic National Committee," Obama states the government has "ordered BP to pay economic injury claims, and this week, the federal government sent BP a preliminary bill for $69 million to pay back American taxpayers for some of the costs of the response so far.” The amount of $69 million is a small fraction of the $837 million awarded by the U.S. military to BP just this fiscal year -- and that is not to even mention the huge amounts paid to BP in the past, or that will be paid to it in the future:
"I am not aware at this moment of any plans to curtail or cancel any DoD contracts that may exist at this time,” Department of Defense spokesperson Cheryl Irwin told TomDispatch. Irwin also stated that she knew of no plans to restrict the awarding of future contracts to BP.The president has remained silent on the issue.I'm forced to admit that, if one were to consider this system from the perspective of its greatest beneficiaries, it is a goddamned beautiful thing. It is elegant. The government takes gobs of money from taxpayers, it shovels huge amounts of that money to already enormously powerful companies, those companies then provide services essential to the government's unending campaigns of widespread destruction and death -- and in the necessary course of providing those services, the companies themselves commit numerous "egregious" and "willful" violations of health and safety requirements (all documented by Turse), and the companies thus inflict enormous suffering on some of the same taxpayers.Then, in a display of our rulers' magnificently bountiful kindness and thoughtfulness, some of those injuries -- just some of them, for how can many of the victims ever be made close to whole again in any meaningful way? -- will be compensated, using a small portion of the huge wealth made possible by the taxpayers in the first instance.As I say: elegant.And this is merely one example, if an especially heinous one, from one industry. How many times in how many industries is this identical pattern repeated every single bloody and blood-filled day? Countless times, in countless industries.This is what the system is designed to do. It does it with astonishing efficiency. Short of civil disobedience on a huge, unrelenting scale, that is, short of widespread, unceasing non-cooperation, the system will continue for the foreseeable future, probably in roughly its current form for the rest of your life. There is no sign that non-cooperation on the required scale will occur or is even being contemplated, except by a few outliers like me. And, possibly, like a few of you.So what are you going to do? Scream at the injustice? Yell about the monstrous evil being committed every hour of every day? Write another blog post? I do not exempt myself from the all-encompassing irony which now consumes us, amidst the rising torrent of blood.But: Withdraw your support, if you choose to. Disobey. Break the goddamned rules. Do not cooperate. If a sufficient number of people chose that course, change might begin.Consider it. I suppose not all that much is at stake -- only your soul, and your happiness.
From Once Apon a Time...
Sunday, June 20, 2010
A note of appreciation from the Elite
Let's be honest: you'll never win the lottery.
On the other hand, the chances are pretty good that you'll slave away at some miserable job the rest of your life. That's because you were in all likelihood born into the wrong social class. Let's face it — you're a member of the working caste. Sorry!
As a result, you don't have the education, upbringing, connections, manners, appearance, and good taste to ever become one of us. In fact, you'd probably need a book the size of the yellow pages to list all the unfair advantages we have over you. That's why we're so relieved to know that you still continue to believe all those silly fairy tales about "justice" and "equal opportunity" in America.
Of course, in a hierarchical social system like ours, there's never been much room at the top to begin with. Besides, it's already occupied by us — and we like it up here so much that we intend to keep it that way. But at least there's usually someone lower in the social hierarchy you can feel superior to and kick in the teeth once in a while. Even a lowly dishwasher can easily find some poor slob further down in the pecking order to sneer and spit at. So be thankful for migrant workers, prostitutes, and homeless street people.
Always remember that if everyone like you were economically secure and socially privileged like us, there would be no one left to fill all those boring, dangerous, low-paid jobs in our economy. And no one to fight our wars for us, or blindly follow orders in our totalitarian corporate institutions. And certainly no one to meekly go to their grave without having lived a full and creative life. So please, keep up the good work!
You also probably don't have the same greedy, compulsive drive to possess wealth, power, and prestige that we have. And even though you may sincerely want to change the way you live, you're also afraid of the very change you desire, thus keeping you and others like you in a nervous state of limbo. So you go through life mechanically playing your assigned social role, terrified what others would think should you ever dare to "break out of the mold".
Naturally, we try to play you off against each other whenever it suits our purposes: high-waged workers against low-waged, unionized against non-unionized, Black against White, male against female, democrat against republican, American workers against Japanese against Mexican against.... We continually push your wages down and take your money by invoking "foreign competition," "the law of supply and demand," "national security," "too big to fail" or "the bloated federal deficit." We throw you on the unemployed scrap heap if you step out of line or jeopardize our profits. And to give you an occasional break from the monotony of our daily economic blackmail, we allow you to participate in our stage-managed electoral shell games, better known to you ordinary folks as "elections." Happily, you haven't a clue as to what's really happening — instead, you blame "Aliens," "Tree-hugging Environmentalists," "Niggers," "Homos", "Wet backs", "Welfare Queens," and countless others for your troubled situation.
We're also very pleased that many of you still embrace the "work ethic," even though most jobs in our economy degrade the environment, undermine your physical and emotional health, and basically suck your one and only life right out of you. We obviously don't know much about work, but we're sure glad you do!
Of course, life could be different. Society could be intelligently organized to meet the real needs of the general population. You and others like you could collectively fight to free yourselves from our domination. But you don't know that. In fact, you can't even imagine that another way of life is possible. And that's probably the greatest, most significant achievement of our system — robbing you of your imagination, your creativity, your ability to think and act for yourself.
So we'd truly like to thank you from the bottom of our heartless hearts. Your loyal sacrifice makes possible our corrupt luxury; your work makes our system work. Our governmental, public education, media mind-control, and financial institutions frame a labyrinthine system of lies that you numbingly support for our advancement and your children's enslavement.
Thanks so much for "knowing your place" — without even knowing it!
From the Daily Paul by marktwain
On the other hand, the chances are pretty good that you'll slave away at some miserable job the rest of your life. That's because you were in all likelihood born into the wrong social class. Let's face it — you're a member of the working caste. Sorry!
As a result, you don't have the education, upbringing, connections, manners, appearance, and good taste to ever become one of us. In fact, you'd probably need a book the size of the yellow pages to list all the unfair advantages we have over you. That's why we're so relieved to know that you still continue to believe all those silly fairy tales about "justice" and "equal opportunity" in America.
Of course, in a hierarchical social system like ours, there's never been much room at the top to begin with. Besides, it's already occupied by us — and we like it up here so much that we intend to keep it that way. But at least there's usually someone lower in the social hierarchy you can feel superior to and kick in the teeth once in a while. Even a lowly dishwasher can easily find some poor slob further down in the pecking order to sneer and spit at. So be thankful for migrant workers, prostitutes, and homeless street people.
Always remember that if everyone like you were economically secure and socially privileged like us, there would be no one left to fill all those boring, dangerous, low-paid jobs in our economy. And no one to fight our wars for us, or blindly follow orders in our totalitarian corporate institutions. And certainly no one to meekly go to their grave without having lived a full and creative life. So please, keep up the good work!
You also probably don't have the same greedy, compulsive drive to possess wealth, power, and prestige that we have. And even though you may sincerely want to change the way you live, you're also afraid of the very change you desire, thus keeping you and others like you in a nervous state of limbo. So you go through life mechanically playing your assigned social role, terrified what others would think should you ever dare to "break out of the mold".
Naturally, we try to play you off against each other whenever it suits our purposes: high-waged workers against low-waged, unionized against non-unionized, Black against White, male against female, democrat against republican, American workers against Japanese against Mexican against.... We continually push your wages down and take your money by invoking "foreign competition," "the law of supply and demand," "national security," "too big to fail" or "the bloated federal deficit." We throw you on the unemployed scrap heap if you step out of line or jeopardize our profits. And to give you an occasional break from the monotony of our daily economic blackmail, we allow you to participate in our stage-managed electoral shell games, better known to you ordinary folks as "elections." Happily, you haven't a clue as to what's really happening — instead, you blame "Aliens," "Tree-hugging Environmentalists," "Niggers," "Homos", "Wet backs", "Welfare Queens," and countless others for your troubled situation.
We're also very pleased that many of you still embrace the "work ethic," even though most jobs in our economy degrade the environment, undermine your physical and emotional health, and basically suck your one and only life right out of you. We obviously don't know much about work, but we're sure glad you do!
Of course, life could be different. Society could be intelligently organized to meet the real needs of the general population. You and others like you could collectively fight to free yourselves from our domination. But you don't know that. In fact, you can't even imagine that another way of life is possible. And that's probably the greatest, most significant achievement of our system — robbing you of your imagination, your creativity, your ability to think and act for yourself.
So we'd truly like to thank you from the bottom of our heartless hearts. Your loyal sacrifice makes possible our corrupt luxury; your work makes our system work. Our governmental, public education, media mind-control, and financial institutions frame a labyrinthine system of lies that you numbingly support for our advancement and your children's enslavement.
Thanks so much for "knowing your place" — without even knowing it!
From the Daily Paul by marktwain
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Capitalism
Capitalism is based on commodity production (production of goods for profit) and wage labor (labor power itself bought and sold as a commodity). There is less difference between the slave and the "free" worker than appears. Slaves, though they seem to be paid nothing, are provided with the means of their survival and reproduction, for which workers (who become temporary slaves during their hours of labor) are compelled to pay most of their wages. The fact that some jobs are less unpleasant than others, and that individual workers have the nominal right to switch jobs, start their own business, buy stocks or win a lottery, simply disguises the fact that the vast majority of people are collectively enslaved.
Modern society is centered around the production, distribution and consumption of material goods, rather than the happiness and satisfaction of its participants. Thus, modern man thinks of his life in terms of what he has "to show for it," rather than considering the life itself.
Today's average worker is used to thinking about the ends rather than the means. We spend most of our time and energy working at a job that in all likelihood does not fulfill our dreams. We look forward to payday every two weeks, for we count on our paycheck to make sense out of our lives: without it, we would feel like we were wasting our time. If we didn't look at the "consequences" of our actions as a justification for them, life would be unbearable. Insofar as our everyday experience of life is tedious and meaningless, we need to concentrate on the coming weekend, the next vacation, our next purchases, to fend off insanity. And eventually we are bound to generalize that mode of thinking to other parts of our lives: we come to evaluate possible actions according to the rewards they offer, just as we would evaluate a job according to the wage it offers.
Thus, the present has lost almost all significance for us. Instead we spend our lives always planning for the future: we study for a diploma, rather than for the pleasure of learning; we choose a job for social status, wealth, and "security," rather than for joy; we save our money for big purchases and vacation trips, rather than to buy our way out of wage slavery and into full time freedom.
Capitalist civilization has not yet been superseded anywhere, but it continues to produce its own enemies everywhere. The next rise of the revolutionary movement, radicalized by the lessons of past defeats and with a program enriched in proportion to the practical potentials of modern society, will immediately base itself on new everyday practices and on new types of human relationships.
Never in history has there been such a glaring contrast between what could be and what actually exists.
Those who don't face direct physical repression still have to face the mental repressions imposed by an increasingly mean, stressful, ignorant and ugly world. Those who escape economic poverty cannot escape the general impoverishment of life.
Yet this same development has made it possible to abolish the system of hierarchy and exploitation that was previously based on material scarcity and to inaugurate a new, genuinely liberated form of society.
Our use of the word "revolution" has nothing to do with the repugnant stereotypes that are usually evoked by the word (terrorism, revenge, political coups, manipulative leaders preaching self-sacrifice, zombie followers chanting politically correct slogans).
A liberated society can be created only by the active participation of the people as a whole, not by hierarchical organizations supposedly acting on their behalf. The point is not to choose more honest or "responsive" leaders, but to avoid granting independent power to any leaders whatsoever. Individuals or groups may initiate radical actions, but a substantial and rapidly expanding portion of the population must take part if a movement is to lead to a new society and not simply to a coup installing new rulers.
Modern revolution is all or nothing: individual revolts are bound to fail until an international chain reaction is triggered that spreads faster than repression can close in.
Is such a revolution likely? The odds are probably against it. But most revolutions have been preceded by periods when everyone scoffed at the idea that things could ever change.
Modern society is centered around the production, distribution and consumption of material goods, rather than the happiness and satisfaction of its participants. Thus, modern man thinks of his life in terms of what he has "to show for it," rather than considering the life itself.
Today's average worker is used to thinking about the ends rather than the means. We spend most of our time and energy working at a job that in all likelihood does not fulfill our dreams. We look forward to payday every two weeks, for we count on our paycheck to make sense out of our lives: without it, we would feel like we were wasting our time. If we didn't look at the "consequences" of our actions as a justification for them, life would be unbearable. Insofar as our everyday experience of life is tedious and meaningless, we need to concentrate on the coming weekend, the next vacation, our next purchases, to fend off insanity. And eventually we are bound to generalize that mode of thinking to other parts of our lives: we come to evaluate possible actions according to the rewards they offer, just as we would evaluate a job according to the wage it offers.
Thus, the present has lost almost all significance for us. Instead we spend our lives always planning for the future: we study for a diploma, rather than for the pleasure of learning; we choose a job for social status, wealth, and "security," rather than for joy; we save our money for big purchases and vacation trips, rather than to buy our way out of wage slavery and into full time freedom.
Capitalist civilization has not yet been superseded anywhere, but it continues to produce its own enemies everywhere. The next rise of the revolutionary movement, radicalized by the lessons of past defeats and with a program enriched in proportion to the practical potentials of modern society, will immediately base itself on new everyday practices and on new types of human relationships.
Never in history has there been such a glaring contrast between what could be and what actually exists.
Those who don't face direct physical repression still have to face the mental repressions imposed by an increasingly mean, stressful, ignorant and ugly world. Those who escape economic poverty cannot escape the general impoverishment of life.
Yet this same development has made it possible to abolish the system of hierarchy and exploitation that was previously based on material scarcity and to inaugurate a new, genuinely liberated form of society.
Our use of the word "revolution" has nothing to do with the repugnant stereotypes that are usually evoked by the word (terrorism, revenge, political coups, manipulative leaders preaching self-sacrifice, zombie followers chanting politically correct slogans).
A liberated society can be created only by the active participation of the people as a whole, not by hierarchical organizations supposedly acting on their behalf. The point is not to choose more honest or "responsive" leaders, but to avoid granting independent power to any leaders whatsoever. Individuals or groups may initiate radical actions, but a substantial and rapidly expanding portion of the population must take part if a movement is to lead to a new society and not simply to a coup installing new rulers.
Modern revolution is all or nothing: individual revolts are bound to fail until an international chain reaction is triggered that spreads faster than repression can close in.
Is such a revolution likely? The odds are probably against it. But most revolutions have been preceded by periods when everyone scoffed at the idea that things could ever change.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Fear or Faith
Society is the 'framework' on which we hang political systems. The engine that drives society is very ancient and can be 'made up' to resemble any political system currently in fashion.
There is only one weapon that will prevail against this system of society, if that is your wish ( ?? despite the talk to the contrary, I would tend to think that most people would not understand what it even means to become 'un-domesticated' or 'un-mired' in society) and the weapon is faith.
Faith is the belief of the people in the system. You have the ability to shun what you wish. I worked at a very large electronics firm in the Bay Area Ca, USA and they never fired anyone, they shunned them, no one lasted longer than a month when they were sunned. When the people believed you irrelevant you BECAME that.
Look to the teaching of your teachers, Jesus, Ghandi, etc. They teach you faith, but you mistake it for religion. Wake UP!!
Faith is you bringing (birthing) the reality you wish into the world. It is God's gift to you to use as you please, it is free will, it is the beginning of all things. Faith is currently sidelined by fear, you can not have faith and fear at the same time.
People, use your faith to make this world better in whatever way you choose it to be! This is not mumbo jumbo, if you take a second to examine carefully 'faith' as a concept you will see that you already are completely pulled into existence through your own set of 'faiths'. Faith in money, faith in honesty, faith in truth.
The betrayal of these faiths is a system designed to weaken you and disable your faith generating power, and the power that you have to effect change.
If you loose your faith now, you and the generations that all come after you will be slaves to the NWO. The only people who will still have faith will be those on 'top' of the NWO and because they will hold the key to creation and the birth of reality, they will create you as slaves forever.
Decide!!...fear or faith. Hope means NOTHING. Fear or faith. Decide, my world...
(unknown author)
There is only one weapon that will prevail against this system of society, if that is your wish ( ?? despite the talk to the contrary, I would tend to think that most people would not understand what it even means to become 'un-domesticated' or 'un-mired' in society) and the weapon is faith.
Faith is the belief of the people in the system. You have the ability to shun what you wish. I worked at a very large electronics firm in the Bay Area Ca, USA and they never fired anyone, they shunned them, no one lasted longer than a month when they were sunned. When the people believed you irrelevant you BECAME that.
Look to the teaching of your teachers, Jesus, Ghandi, etc. They teach you faith, but you mistake it for religion. Wake UP!!
Faith is you bringing (birthing) the reality you wish into the world. It is God's gift to you to use as you please, it is free will, it is the beginning of all things. Faith is currently sidelined by fear, you can not have faith and fear at the same time.
People, use your faith to make this world better in whatever way you choose it to be! This is not mumbo jumbo, if you take a second to examine carefully 'faith' as a concept you will see that you already are completely pulled into existence through your own set of 'faiths'. Faith in money, faith in honesty, faith in truth.
The betrayal of these faiths is a system designed to weaken you and disable your faith generating power, and the power that you have to effect change.
If you loose your faith now, you and the generations that all come after you will be slaves to the NWO. The only people who will still have faith will be those on 'top' of the NWO and because they will hold the key to creation and the birth of reality, they will create you as slaves forever.
Decide!!...fear or faith. Hope means NOTHING. Fear or faith. Decide, my world...
(unknown author)
Religion and Money
To reflect on the relationship of religion to money, there is no better starting-point than “to go beyond time.” In returning to the origin of the question, we may find a grain of truth and thus turn towards the remedy for an otherwise intractable problem. Countless volumes have appeared about the Church’s attitude to war and sex but very little has been written about money.
William Desmonde shows that in some ancient cultures money was used as a symbol to replace food in sacrificial communion rituals. Participation in the meal implied a bond of loyalty with other members of the group and signified also entering into a covenant with the deity. Each communicant received a particular portion of the sacrificial flesh corresponding to his standing in the community.
When money of different denominations began to be used in place of the portions of food, the establishment of a contractual relationship between two individuals at first retained traces of the original bond of religious loyalty among participants in the same communion, with impersonal bargaining replacing the patriarchal redistribution of foods among the brotherhood.
In any case, there is good reason to suppose that money was originally a sacred device created by religious authority to facilitate the exchange of necessities in an expanding society. MORE
William Desmonde shows that in some ancient cultures money was used as a symbol to replace food in sacrificial communion rituals. Participation in the meal implied a bond of loyalty with other members of the group and signified also entering into a covenant with the deity. Each communicant received a particular portion of the sacrificial flesh corresponding to his standing in the community.
When money of different denominations began to be used in place of the portions of food, the establishment of a contractual relationship between two individuals at first retained traces of the original bond of religious loyalty among participants in the same communion, with impersonal bargaining replacing the patriarchal redistribution of foods among the brotherhood.
In any case, there is good reason to suppose that money was originally a sacred device created by religious authority to facilitate the exchange of necessities in an expanding society. MORE
The War Against Nature
The most violent and widespread war in human history has been taking place for more than 5,000 years. It has been waged in more places than any other war, yet the majority of its atrocities goes unreported. Some deny the war even exists. Sadly, the international peace and justice movement gives it little attention, perhaps because everyone has grown used to it. Our lifestyles contribute to this war in various degrees and it may be that our complicity creates a measure of denial. This war is, of course, against the Earth; against Nature. As humans, many of us indoctrinated in Western materialistic culture and values, we participate on some level. MORE
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